Insince.re

Swearing

19 May 2014

If you're going to swear, please just fucking swear.

I keep seeing links being sent round to that review of that Coldplay album. I'm sure it's hi-fucking-larious, but I will never know since I find the piece utterly unreadable, peppered as it is with all those asterisks.

(NB: I have no idea if the author has self-censored his/her expletives or if it's a publishing edict from The Quietus. The latter seems more likely - anyone who uses that quantity of swearwords is probably pretty happy about it and unlikely to get asterisk-happy to spare anyone's blushes.)

The thing is, when you write "f**k" or "the F word" you are writing "fuck". When you write "c**t", you are writing "cunt". You're just making me say it for you.

This irritates the shit out of me. If you want to swear, swear. You don't get to play with the toys in the swear box and then shy away from the punch at the end. If you want to call someone a twat or a wanker, have the fucking gumption to write "twat" or "wanker" not "tw*t" or "w**ker". If you have a problem with standing behind the actual words, then use something else - these are not for you.